Jan. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Sebastian Mallaby, director of geoeconomic studies at the Council on Foreign Relations, talks about Europe's debt crisis. He speaks with Jason Kelly at the Bloomberg Link Global Markets Summit in New York.

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — The U.S. created a modest 157,000 jobs in January and the unemployment rate ticked up, but the economy added one-third of a million more positions in 2012 than previously thought, with a large chunk coming in the final months of the year.

Unemployment in the 17-nation bloc climbed for a fifth month to 11.9 percent, according to the median of 34 economists’ forecasts in a Bloomberg News survey. That result due on Feb. 1 would show the highest jobless rate since records began in 1995. By contrast, German unemployment data the day before may show the jobless rate there held steady for a fourth month at 6.9 percent in January, a separate survey found.